One girl's adventures in the History of Medicine.

Om Noms

This recipe is made for two very hungry people and is easily doubled (or tripled) for extra people or extra hungry people.

For the biscuits (recipe courtesy of Food.com):

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons cold butter, cubed

1 cup buttermilk (this can be problematic in the UK, but you can substitute it for 1 cup milk + 1 tablespoon lemon juice)

For the gravy:

1/4 pound ground sausage (if you struggle to find this, just grab some cumberlands and take ’em out of their casings)

3ish tablespoons of fat (this can be sausage grease, vegetable oil, butter or a mix)

3ish tablespoons of flour

2 cups milk

1ish teaspoon sage

salt and pepper

Fluffy. Flakey. Heaven.

First things first. You have to make them biscuits. Preheat oven to 425 F and combine dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add in butter cubes and cut in or just dive right in with your hands (my preferred method) and combine until the mixture reaches a sandy or grainy texture. Add in the buttermilk a little at a time and mix until everything is wet. The biscuit dough should be a pretty sticky affair – unlike pie crusts and such. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and press out with floured hands until it is about 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Using a floured 1 1/2-ish cookie cutter, begin cutting out your biscuits. You could also use a glass with a floured rim. Feel free to re-press the dough scraps for extra biscuits, but try to work the dough as little as possible. Pop the biscuits onto a baking tray (I like to have the sides of the biscuits touching each other) and back for 10-12 minutes. They should be golden and beautiful.

Now it’s time for the delicious gravy.

It may be delicious, but sausage gravy sure ain’t photogenic.

Cook up the ground sausage and set to the side, leaving the delicious sausage grease in the pot. Add a little extra fat if need be, so you have about three tablespoons (I usually reach for the vegetable oil). Add in the flour, salt and pepper and whisk to form a roux. Once the roux is a bit bubbly, add in the milk and continue to whisk while the gravy comes to gentle boil. Remove from the heat and add in the sage and sausage.

Plating up: most people just cut the biscuits in half and pour over the gravy open face. I am not most people. I like to tear up my biscuits and pour the gravy over the pile of biscuit-scraps. Find what works for you and enjoy!

3/4 unsweetened cocoa powder (people of the UK – make sure you get the legit cocoa powder, not hot chocolate – these are very different and the latter will un-veganify it)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup water

1 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

berries, nuts, chocolate chips or any other additions you might like

I halved mine and added raspberries because summer!

Preheat your oven to 350F/170C. Mix up the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt) in a big ol’ bowl. Add in the water, vegetable oil and vanilla and mix again until blended and smooth. Pour into a 9×13 inch pan that has been greased and lined with parchment. Add any toppers you might want. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the top of the brownies no longer look shiny/raw. Let it cool and then stuff your face. This recipe is easily halved if, like me, you can’t trust yourself to have an entire tray of brownies scooting around. I just throw in a heaping 1/3 cup of cocoa instead and call it good because I’m bad at fractions.

1/4 tsp. almond extract (or just pour it in, that’s what I usually do)

(for the icing)

250g icing/powdered sugar

1 tbsp. lemon juice

~ 1 tbsp. cold water

glacé/candied cherries for decoration

After letting it warm up a bit, unroll the pastry and line your 22 cm tart/flan/pie tin. Stab the base a few times with a fork and then evenly spread the base with jam. Pop it into the fridge and let it chill while preparing the rest of the tart. Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F and put in a baking tray.

Observe the delicious layers!

In a mixing bowl, combine the butter, sugar, egg, flour, baking powder, ground almonds and almond extract and beat well. Spoon it on top on the jam-covered pastry and spread evenly. Pop it into the oven on the heated baking tray and bake for thirty-ish minutes – just until the pasty is a light, golden brown and the filling is firm and golden. Remove from the oven and let it cool. Mix the icing/powdered sugar with the lemon juice and water for a smooth and somewhat thick icing. I like to spread it evenly over the top of the whole tart for the aesthetic you see in the first picture, but you could also drizzle it on to the tart toaster-strudel style. Decorate with the halved cherries or sprinkle with flaked almonds. This is your tart – get creative! And enjoy at either room temperature or nuke your slice for a few seconds to warm it up.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes (you could also do the double-boiler method if you prefer, but a microwave works fine). Stir the chocolate to make sure it’s evenly melted, then add the peanut butter. Stir again until the mixture is smooth. Pour the mixture over the cereal in a large bowl and stir until the cereal is evenly coated. Put the powdered/icing sugar in a large freezer bag or storage container. Add the chocolate/peanut butter covered cereal to the powdered/icing sugar holder and shake to coat. Finally, eat it all in one sitting and curl into a ball of self-loathing.